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Law of Negligence: Duty of Care, Standard of Care, and the Notion of Personal Responsibility

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Law of Negligence: Duty of Care, Standard of Care, and the Notion of Personal Responsibility 3rd International Conference on Management Science and Management Innovation (MSMI 2016) Law of Negligence: Duty of Care, Standard of Care, and the Notion of Personal Responsibility Qiang He, Jia-Ling Feng, Wan-Yun Huang College of Management, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Abstract—This essay’s main body divides into two parts. After a above and give a clearly understand of duty of care for brief background of the historical development of the law of negligence. negligence, the first part is to demonstrate the principles of Duty of Care and the Standard of Care, including duty of care II. BACKGROUND for negligent acts and the guidelines of breaching the standard The tort of negligence is a vital aspect of the tort law, of care. Then it will analyze the special duty of care within parent and child from three aspects. Finally the essay will because compare to other tort, there is a large amount of provide a conclusion to summarize all the information above negligence cases occurred in real life than others (Davies & and give a clearly understand of duty of care for negligence. Malkin, 2008). Before the landmark case of Donohue v Stevenson [1932], most of the counts did not consider similar Keywords-duty of care; standard of care; the notion of cases as negligence (Barravecchio, 2013). personal responsibility Since the 1980s, there was a development of negligent advice in Australia with the case Shaddock and Associates v. I. INTRODUCTION Parramatta City Council (1981) 150 CLR 225. And there Tort law is considered as an important branch of civil law. It were important legislative changes during the 2002-03 represents a „wrong‟ act or omission by the defendant which periods. After these kinds of improvements, negligence plays actually caused the plaintiff‟s loss or injuries (Pentony, Graw, a more important role in recent years. Lennard, & Parker, 2008). Negligence is one of the most III. DUTY OF CARE FOR NEGLIGENT ACTS significant legislative components in tort law. It is always considered as four divisions: the defendant must owe a duty The tort of negligence states that a reasonable person who of care to the plaintiff; the duty must be breached by the caused another person‟s loss or injury because she or he fails defendant; the breach must cause loss or injury suffered by to take reasonable care should provide compensation (Howe, the plaintiff; and the damage must not remoteness (Richards, Walsh, & Rooney, 2012). A negligence action is determined Ludlow, & Gibson, 2009). by three key issues: However, people discuss the legislation and have different The defendant must owe a duty of care to the opinions on the simple „accident‟ and „personal plaintiff; responsibility‟. Some of them argue that if an innocent The defendant must breach the duty of care; and person is injured nowadays, someone else, no matter it to be The defendant‟s acts or omission must cause the another person, a corporation or the government, will be plaintiff‟s loss or injury. blamed for it. Others argue that the situation is not that In order to determine the duty of care for different cases, simple in real world and that the concept of „personal people usually consider it from two ways which named responsibility‟ still exists in law. historical approach and contemporary approach (Pentony, Accordingly, the purpose of this academic essay is to Graw, Lennard, & Parker, 2008). According to these two illustrate the Duty of Care (i.e. the 1st essential) and Standard approaches, people can easily identify the duty of care. of Care (i.e. the 2nd essential) essentials of negligence in detail and critical analyzing a specific aspect on parent‟s duty A. Historical Approach to child and third parties. It will provide strong evidences The established historical test to identify a duty of care for with case authorities and secondary authorities to support the negligence act is Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562. In statement as well. this case, the manufacturer of the ginger beer did owe the This essay‟s main body divides into two parts. After a brief plaintiff a duty of care, and because of the snail in the bottle background of the historical development of the law of the plaintiff suffered „nervous shock and severe negligence, the first part is to demonstrate the principles of gastro-enteritis‟, the defendant should response this Duty of Care and the Standard of Care, including duty of care negligence act and recovered compensation. for negligent acts and the guidelines of breaching the It also stated the two components of duty of care, standard of care. Then it will analyze the special duty of care „reasonable foreseeability‟ and „proximity‟, in the same case. within parent and child from three aspects. Finally the essay As Trindade, Cane and Lunney (2007) said, for reasonable will provide a conclusion to summarize all the information foreseeability, people will consider that in a particular situation, does the reasonable person foresee a loss or injury © 2016. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 1 of the plaintiff resulted from the defendant‟s behavior? On (2008) stated that they try to identify a „neighbourhood‟ the other hand, for proximity, does the defendant know his or relationship according to four features: her negligent act may affect the plaintiff because of the The plaintiff‟s vulnerability, closeness? The plaintiff‟s reliance on the defendant, Furthermore, Richards, Zwart and Ludlow (2013) use an The defendant‟s assumption of responsibility, and example which provided by Hayne J to explain proximity as The defendant‟s control of their behavior. “nearness, hearness or dearness”: Tame v New South Wales; When the Court cannot identify a case into an established Annetts v Australian Stations Pty Ltd (2002) 211 CLR 317 at category, they can consider the vulnerability of the plaintiff, [25-26]. The best way to find out a duty of care existed is to whether or not the plaintiff is disadvantaged comparing with consider the relationship between the parties and the relevant the defendant in this matter. Does the plaintiff rely on the proximity to the negligent conduct. defendant, or the defendant‟s assumption of responsibility (if All in all, both of the two elements do not mean the any)? Then what is the level of the defendant to control their defendant ought to be actually foreseen the plaintiff‟s results. actions? After considering the four questions, the Court will However, what the defendant should know is that aware the get a sufficiently close „neighborhood‟ relationship existed to effects of doing the negligent act (Trindade, Cane & Lunney, recognize a duty of care. 2007). 4) Social policy B. Contemporary Approach Social policy may sometimes against the established duty of care in some situations. In other words, the defendant may In order to change their decided method from a „one-best‟ owe a liability of legal policy. approach to a „broad approach‟, the High Court decided to There are various forms of policy, which range from legally impose a new approach in the establishment of a duty of care recognized policies to a particular judge‟s personal values. due to a number of cases in the 1990s. They were not satisfied Therefore, judges should be quite cautious about interfering with „proximity‟ because it was not suitable for the defining with government policies. In Miller v Miller (2011), the test to identify a duty of care in any significant cases Court noticed that public policy means people should not (Pentony, Graw, Lennard, & Parker, 2008). Instead, the High allow illegal behavior, but in this case they particularly focus Court expressed four rules to achieve more correct identify of on the determination of whether the duty of care should be a duty of care. arise due to the detail and relationship between the parties 1) Reasonable foreseeability: (Sappideen, Vines, &Watson,2009). The question of reasonable foreseeability is a basic question Accordingly, this aspect allows the courts to compete with of whether the duty of care is owed. It is always the first the considerations of social policy and then determine a duty question asked in negligence. Chapman v Hearse (1961) is of care should or not be used (Howe, Walsh, & Rooney, the sample of this test. Besides, one of the most famous cases 2012). which considered as unforeseeable plaintiff is Palsgraf v Long Island R R Co 248 NY 339 (1928) (US). IV. STANDARD OF CARE For this aspect, the courts should determine that if there was Once the facts of the case confirm that the defendant owes a reasonable foreseeability risk of damage, such as injury or the plaintiff a duty of care, it does not mean the defendant‟s loss. In other words, if there was not a reasonable action result in damage or loss. Therefore, the plaintiff needs foreseeability, it could not be established the existence of a to provide more evidence to prove their statements. Hence, duty of care (Howe, Walsh, & Rooney, 2012). It is an the next step is considering the second essential of negligence, important essential of contemporary approach. breach of Standard of Care. Richards, Ludlow and Gibson 2) Analogies – recognized duties of care (2009) summarized that in order to determine the breach of In this method, the courts would review the previously cases Standard of Care, there are two issues to consider: to figure out whether or not the present case is similar to one the extent of foreseeable risk that created by the of the established duty of care (Richards, Ludlow, & Gibson, defendant‟s conduct; 2009). For example, employers owe a duty of care to their employees, the driver of a motor vehicle owes a duty of care the reasonableness or otherwise of the defendant‟s to other road users, and schools owe a duty of care to the response to that risk.
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